


Twists and Turns

by Ashkaztra



Series: Irregularities [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Hair Braiding, M/M, Pre-Slash, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3837634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashkaztra/pseuds/Ashkaztra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, not thinking is a sound strategy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twists and Turns

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea. I just wanted to write a silly ficlet with hair braiding because yes please. The rest of this just happened.
> 
> My Wraith are apparently rather catlike.

The sliding doors of Atlantis are not, as a general rule, particularly loud, which is why John jumps as the door slams shut behind them and almost seems to fuse together into just another wall. 

"McKay," he calls into the communicator, thinking _open_ at the door until his head feels strange. "The doors!"

"We're working on it!" Rodney's voice is frazzled and high, a clear sign of stress. The city has been acting strange for days, and they all look to him to fix it. "The submarine levels are experiencing flooding and there's malfunctions all over the place. If you're not in urgent need of help, you're just going to have to wait. Sorry." 

In the background, John can hear the frantic typing and discussion of the science team working overdrive. 

Turning his radio off, John sighs. "I'm just stuck in a room with a Wraith. No need to hurry on my account." 

The Wraith in question gives that rasping little sound of amusement he always does. 

At least the room is pretty large and airy. It's a corner room in the central tower, mostly used as a place to stick random pieces of decoration left by the Ancients, and two of the sides are practically all window. If it comes down to it for any reason, escape is possible.

John would rather not climb the tower again, but he will do what he has to do. 

Most of the stuff that has been piled into the room is by the door, crates and random bits and bobs. Further inside, the room is still pretty open, so John heads over there and drops down to the floor by the window. The sun is high in the sky and the sunlight is warm and welcoming. 

Like some kind of malicious shadow, Todd follows his lead, moving to sit in the sunny patch. In the sunlight, his hair looks like rime. Tangled, twined rime.

They don't really have much to say to each other. Not because of any sort of disagreement; there's just little they feel the need to discuss, so they sit in companionable silence instead, watching the mosaic windows cast strange shadows on the wall. 

At some point, they end up sprawling in the sun. Sitting is only comfortable for so long and John stretches his feet out in front of him, balls his discarded jacket up as a pillow and lies back to stare at the ceiling. Might as well bask in the warmth. 

Every time he turns on the radio to check up on people, there is more chaos, more urgency and more general madness. 

Basking in a warm and sunny spot is a luxury in comparison, even with the added Wraith. 

The added Wraith isn't even a bother. 

In fact, he's lying so still, rolled onto his stomach with his face tucked into the crook of his arm, that John has to sit up and look twice to make sure he's even breathing. 

He is, but it's a very slow, steady breath, and it takes a moment for John to realise that Todd has fallen asleep. 

It surprises him, though he's not sure why. Wraith do sleep occasionally. 

Just not normally sprawled on the floor next to him. 

It occurs to him that there's a message of something almost like trust in that, that Todd probably wouldn't fall asleep in his company if he didn't feel safe doing so, and that's a strange feeling, warm and a little threatening.

He pushes it away as soon as it appears. It's more likely because Todd just doesn't see him as a threat. 

Maybe it's the urge to prove otherwise that makes him reach out to carefully touch the mess of white hair that's spilling across Todd's arm and onto the floor. 

Or maybe it's just curiosity. 

Todd stirs slightly in response, lifting his head barely to see what's going on. When he catches sight of John, he makes another amused sound and lies back down, and that's definitely a dismissal. 

Well, if that's how he's going to be about it… 

John spends the next hour or so working as many small braids into Todd's hair as he can manage, and then, once he runs out of loose hair, braids the smaller braids together into larger ones. The hair is a lot softer than he'd have imagined, really, soft and silky, and it feels nice against his skin as he works. 

Eventually, Todd decides he's had enough cat napping, and sits up, his hair braided into some kind of elaborate mess.

It should look utterly ridiculous, because John was hardly trying to make it look complimentary, but it somehow manages not to. It just looks like a multitude of tiny braids turned into consistently larger ones. Nothing more, nothing less. 

It doesn't seem to matter at all to Todd, who seems to be listening to something in the distance.

Sometimes, John suspects that Teyla and Todd use their telepathy to commentate whatever is going on unheard by the others, though he has no proof of it. Neither Todd nor Teyla will confirm or deny it. If they did not do that, they would probably have told him no. 

He gives Todd his best "I don't know what you're up to but I know it can't be good" and Todd just chuckles at him.

It takes a little while longer before they're finally released, but Todd leaves the braids alone. Only as they're heading up to control to try figuring out what the hell has gotten into Atlantis does he begin taking them out. By the time they're up there, most of them are gone, but there's still a few tiny braids left in there, and Todd shows no inclination to do anything about those. 

By the time they figure everything out - the short version is that Atlantis objects to Todd's presence, though there's more to it than that, of course - the braids are still there, even though hours have passed and it's not like they've been tied off. But Todd's hair seems to lock in place on its own and the braids fare much better than most other things - the longer version involves a fail-safe that the Ancients put in place that detects Wraith presence in key areas and reacts by turning off safety features to make the city uninhabitable; a good idea, but the actual implementation makes Atlantis act like a toddler throwing a tantrum – despite the fact that fixing some of the things the fail-safe broke involved a lot of climbing on things to reach difficult places. 

People has noticed, but of course, most people do not dare say much to a Wraith.

John suspects Teyla is laughing at him behind his back, though. 

He would be annoyed if he didn't find the whole situation laughable himself. Seriously, the fail-safe makes Atlantis turn of life support in the case of a Wraith invasion, which might work in a space ship that was actually in space. On Atlantis, sitting pretty on the surface of the ocean, it means the air condition doesn't work like it should. 

It would probably take more than stuffy, hot air to deter Wraith. 

There are days John seriously wonders about the Ancients. 

Though to be fair, they didn't laze about in the sun with Wraith, so he probably has no room to criticize. 

Doesn't mean he's not going to. It keeps his mind off of other things. 

Like the braids still hanging almost neatly in Todd's hair and the memory of how soft it had felt under his fingers. 

Nothing good comes from going down that road.


End file.
